Defamation, at a first approximation, is any form of communication that can injure a third party's reputation. This can include all modes of human-understandable communications: gestures, images, signs, words. It is not necessarily restricted to making assertions that are falsifiable, and can extend to concepts that are more abstract than reputation – like dignity and honour. For a communication to be considered defamatory, it must be conveyed to someone other than the defamed. Depending on the permanence or transience of the communication medium, defamation may be distinguished between libel and slander. It is treated as a civil wrong, as a criminal offence, or both. The exact definition of defamation and related acts, as well as the ways they are dealt with, can vary greatly between countries and jurisdictions; for example, whether they constitute crimes or not, to what extent insults and opinions are included in addition to allegations of facts, to what extent proving the alleged facts is a valid defence.
Hill v Church of Scientology of Toronto February 20, 1995- July 20, 1995. 2 S.C.R. 1130 was a libel case against the Church of Scientology, in which the Supreme Court of Canada interpreted Ontario's libel law in relation to the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
In English law, natural justice is technical terminology for the rule against bias and the right to a fair hearing. While the term natural justice is often retained as a general concept, it has largely been replaced and extended by the general "duty to act fairly".
Public-interest immunity (PII), previously known as Crown privilege, is a principle of English common law under which the English courts can grant a court order allowing one litigant to refrain from disclosing evidence to the other litigants where disclosure would be damaging to the public interest. This is an exception to the usual rule that all parties in litigation must disclose any evidence that is relevant to the proceedings. In making a PII order, the court has to balance the public interest in the administration of justice and the public interest in maintaining the confidentiality of certain documents whose disclosure would be damaging. PII orders have been used in criminal law against large organised criminal outfits and drug dealers where the identity of paid police informants could be at risk.
Fair comment is a legal term for a common law defense in defamation cases. It is referred to as honest comment in some countries.
Lange v Australian Broadcasting Corporation is a High Court of Australia case that upheld the existence of an implied freedom of political communication in the Australian Constitution, but found that it did not necessarily provide a defence to a defamation action. The High Court extended the defence of qualified privilege to be compatible with the freedom of political communication.
Neutral reportage is a common law defense against libel and defamation lawsuits usually involving the media republishing unproven accusations about public figures. It is a limited exception to the common law rule that one who repeats a defamatory statement is just as guilty as the first person who published it.
Modern libel and slander laws in many countries are originally descended from English defamation law. The history of defamation law in England is somewhat obscure; civil actions for damages seem to have been relatively frequent as far back as the Statute of Gloucester in the reign of Edward I (1272–1307). The law of libel emerged during the reign of James I (1603–1625) under Attorney General Edward Coke who started a series of libel prosecutions. Scholars frequently attribute strict English defamation law to James I's outlawing of duelling. From that time, both the criminal and civil remedies have been found in full operation.
Canadian defamation law refers to defamation law as it stands in both common law and civil law jurisdictions in Canada. As with most Commonwealth jurisdictions, Canada follows English law on defamation issues.
Campbell v Mirror Group Newspapers Ltd[2004] UKHL 22 was a House of Lords decision regarding human rights and privacy in English law.
Jameel & Ors v Wall Street Journal Europe Sprl was a House of Lords judgment on English defamation law. The issue was whether the defamatory article was protected by Reynolds privilege. The judgment was an affirmation of Reynolds v Times Newspapers Ltd and effectively upholds a public interest defence in libel cases.
Adam v. Ward was a 1919 House of Lords case concerning the legal theories of qualified privilege and that of the constitutional defence. Qualified privilege is "a defence to the publication of defamatory statements which may be false but which warrant protection from an action in defamation because the occasion on which they are made demands that they be made freely with the prospect of litigation removed." The constitutional defence varies from country to country in that it is based on the constitutional law of said country.
Grant v Torstar Corp, [2009] 3 S.C.R. 640, 2009 SCC 61, is a 2009 Supreme Court of Canada decision on the defences to the tort of defamation. The Supreme Court ruled that the law of defamation should give way to the rights of a party to speak on matters of public interest, provided the party exercises a certain level of responsibility in verifying the potentially defamatory facts. This decision recognizes a defence of responsible communication on matters of public interest.
Greene v Associated Newspapers Ltd [2004] EWCA Civ 1462 is a case of the Court of Appeal of England and Wales that governs the use of injunctions against publication in alleged defamation cases. Greene, a businesswoman, sought an injunction against Associated Newspapers Ltd to prevent them publishing alleged links with Peter Foster; while they claimed to have emails showing links, she asserted that they were false. The test at the time for a preliminary injunction in defamation cases was Bonnard v Perryman, where it was established that the applicant has to show "a real prospect of success" at trial. The Human Rights Act 1998 established that judges should consider whether applicants are "more likely than not" to succeed at trial, a test applied to confidentiality cases in Cream Holdings Ltd v Banerjee and the Liverpool Post and Echo Ltd. Greene claimed that the Cream test should be applied rather than the Bonnard test.
Article 14 of the Constitution of the Republic of Singapore, specifically Article 14(1), guarantees to Singapore citizens the rights to freedom of speech and expression, peaceful assembly without arms, and association. However, the enjoyment of these rights may be restricted by laws imposed by the Parliament of Singapore on the grounds stated in Article 14(2) of the Constitution.
Procedural impropriety in Singapore administrative law is one of the three broad categories of judicial review, the other two being illegality and irrationality. A public authority commits procedural impropriety if it fails to properly observe either statutory procedural requirements, or common law rules of natural justice and fairness.
The Defamation Act 2013 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, which reformed English defamation law on issues of the right to freedom of expression and the protection of reputation. It also comprised a response to perceptions that the law as it stood was giving rise to libel tourism and other inappropriate claims.
Spring v Guardian Assurance plc[1994] UKHL 7, [1995] 2 AC 296 is a UK labour law and English tort law case, concerning the duty to provide accurate information when writing an employee reference.
Bent Coppers: The Inside Story of Scotland Yard's Battle Against Police Corruption is a non-fiction book by award-winning British journalist Graeme McLagan. First published in the United Kingdom in 2003 by Orion Publishing Group, the book examines police corruption within the Metropolitan Police Service and South Eastern Regional Crime Squad—with particular focus on the 1990s and early 2000s—and the establishment and activities of the force's anti-corruption "Ghost Squad". Its publication led to a 4-year legal case resulting in a landmark ruling in English defamation law.
Esther Louise Rantzen v Mirror Group Newspapers (1986) Ltd., Brian Radford, Richard Stott and Mirror Group Newspapers plc. [1993] EWCA Civ 16, [1993] 4 All ER 975, also shortened to Rantzen v Mirror Group Newspapers by legal analysts, is a 1993 English defamation court case. The case was brought by the television presenter Esther Rantzen against Mirror Group Newspapers, publisher of The People which had alleged that Rantzen had protected a child abuser after he had given information about child abuse in a school.
